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Jerry chrome settlement email Those words should be welcome news for most people, but they’re oddly disconcerting when they appear at the top of an email from Google. That was the reality for many Gmail users this week when an email with the subject line “Notice of Class Action Settlement re Google Plus” appeared in their inboxes. The...

Facebook to bring mandatory distances reality Mark Zuckerberg is putting some more distance between his most famous creation and his big bet on the future. On Thursday, Zuckerberg announced that starting next month, users of the Oculus Quest (now Meta) VR headset would no longer need a Facebook account to log in. Instead, he said, the company will roll out separate accounts under...

What did the pyramids look like Go to the pyramids at Giza today, and you’ll see pollution blackened steppes surrounded by smog and sand. Some 4,000 years ago, the pyramids looked much nicer: They were covered in polished limestone, resembling brilliant lightforms dropped into the desert from the sky. In this short documentary put together by the Smithsonian Channel,...

Were all trying to find the guy who did this You may have seen a certain individual slathered like excess mustard across the internet lately, as ubiquitous as a street corner hot dog vendor in a major city. Republicans in the House right now pic.twitter.com/lDpHjEyiIV — Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) January 13, 2021 “Who the hell is this guy?” you may...

why did crypto crash in 2018 It seems all too fitting that Facebook’s plans to launch a digital coin were leaked in the second-to-last week of a year that saw the tech giant’s reputation pummeled and cryptocurrencies crash and burn. It’s like grilling a shit sandwich over a dumpster fire. Bitcoin–and the cryptocurrency industry as a whole–plunged this year, after a gravity-defying surge in...

Costco in mexico Like any of the other 800 Costco big-box stores around the world, the new Costco in the Santa Fe district of Mexico City is gigantic. Its warehouse-like shopping area and three-story parking structure add up to more than 524,000 square feet of real estate. But looking at it from the outside, it’s almost hard to...

Lays wow chips Americans love junk food, and we continue to fool ourselves into thinking that there is a magical solution that will allow us to eat as much as we want without gaining any of the weight. Yes, discipline and control are truly hard pills to swallow, so show us great-tasting fat-free food that doesn’t go to...

When did spotify get popular As we note in our feature on Spotify and its CEO and cofounder Daniel Ek, the streaming music service’s path to a leading position in the music industry was never certain and remains tenuous. How it got here–to 83 million paid subscribers and 180 million total monthly listeners–is a remarkable story. 2002: The...

Solar farm las vegas Solar power keeps getting cheaper, but there’s a reason why utilities still turn to fossil fuels: it’s expensive to store solar energy for use at night or on a cloudy day, times when solar doesn’t work. But a massive new solar plant, sprawling over 1,670 acres near Las Vegas, was designed to solve that...

The oscars live stream 2018 The 90th annual Academy Awards ceremony takes place tonight, and while we’ve already made our case for why Jordan Peele’s Get Out should take home the top prize, the race for Best Picture is wide open this year. If you don’t have a TV, there are still ways to watch the Oscars broadcast online, but...